Sometimes my life feels like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. It’s like I live in Bizzaroland! Seriously. I seem to have a knack of getting myself into situations where sometimes all I can do is thwack myself on the head in disbelief at the lunacy that surrounds me. Take last weekend, for instance. On Friday I received my much anticipated order of fancy schmancy, imported French fruit purees. These are the purees that I use to make my lovely pate de fruits that I give as Holiday gifts. After processing, the order was supposed to only take three days to deliver. It took two weeks. But, that’s beside the point.

As you can imagine, when my package arrived, I opened it immediately. Since the purees were frozen, I wanted to get them all settled in the freezer as soon as possible. As soon as I reached into the box, I noticed a pool of sticky orange liquid lying there. When I lifted the first container of puree out of the box, said sticky, orange liquid began dripping all over my hand and onto my floor.

Uh oh! This was not good.

Upon further inspection, I realized my precious fruit purees were all completely melted. Yes, people, all six kilos! In fact, the containers weren’t even cold to the touch. And, two of them were not even sealed, which explained the sticky orange liquid. Of course, since they were already thawed out, I couldn’t use them anymore. They were worthless to me. And let me tell you, they were not cheap!

Do you remember the old United Airlines slogan “Fly the Friendly Skies”? It was the tagline on most of the company’s advertising from 1966 to about 1996. They promised an idyllic in-flight experience comparable to what you might encounter at a 4-star resort. Take a look:

Hello and welcome to SGCC! I’m Susan, a professional writer, food columnist, recipe developer, wife, mother, daughter and sister, who used to be a lawyer in a previous life. My love of food comes from a long line of wonderful and creative Italian home cooks who didn’t always have a lot, but knew how to make a lot out of what they had. I hope that you enjoy yourself while you’re here, and visit often! read more >>